Company of Heroes 2

[Kit]

Company of Heroes 2

Fans of Company of Heroes have been waiting for any hint that a sequel was in the works, but recent images from a UK gaming magazine seem to show that those fans won't be waiting too much longer for an update to the wildly popular RTS franchise.

A thread on Reddit reveals scans of the upcoming issue of PC Gamer UK showing a massive cover story on Company of Heroes 2, detailing the reporter's trip to Relic to see the game. We contacted THQ and they have no official comment on the images or article.

According to the cover story, the game will be set on the Eastern front where "13 of the 15 bloodiest battles" of World War II took place, including Stalingrad, Smolensk, Kursk and Moscow. The story quotes Lead Designer Quinn Duffy as saying that the sequel isn't about being different, but being new and offering more. "We want more authenticity, we want more realism, we want more tactical improvements," Duffy said in the article

Few major details were revealed, except a release date of sometime in 2013, but with the magazine out before an official announcement from THQ, we should be hearing more in the next few days..

http://www.shacknews.com/article/73637/company-of-heroes-2-shown-in-uk-mag

Great news.

Loved the first.

[Uli]

a brave move to focus on eastern war scenarios but all the more welcome. indeed, the eastern front battles were the decisive ones and, of course more horrific than any battle on the western front. the US force's heroic battle of Bastogne must have been a walk in the park compared to Demjansk or Stalingrad.

i've not played the fist game as i am not a big fan of RTS involving resource management but i might be interested in this one.

[briareos_kerensky]

Beautiful, wonderful news. I wonder if Relic will go for a semi-dynamic campaign or for a fixed mission sequence. Either way, it's one more game to keep my PC alive.

Now, if they only would announce Homeworld 3...

[Uli]

semi-dynamic? isn't every RTS game supposed to be fully dynamic?

[PeteJ]

Most RTS are fully linear - you either win the mission and go onto the next or try again. I guess a semi-dynamic structure would be missions based on your previous successes and failures...or objectives generated on the fly.

Anyway, I'm not a fan of RTS but CoH wa the one that got it right. Look forward to this.

[briareos_kerensky]

semi-dynamic? isn't every RTS game supposed to be fully dynamic?

PeteJ already mentioned this.
Relic tried a semi-dynamic campaign with the Dawn of War expasions and DoWII, while the first Company of Heroes was a linear set of missions.

[Uli]

thanks guys, think i got it.

i just went through both the full press release and the PC gamer preview but there's just mention of a Russian campaign mode. wow, how refreshing and innovative so i take back what i said above - the devs are playing it safe again. but, well, who would love to fight in a lost and hopeless campaign anyway? oh, yes, Germans maybe.

[Kit]

First screen:

http://www.shacknews.com/article/73672/company-of-heroes-2-officially-announced-first-screen-shown

Could have done with a close up screen to compare the level of detail on the units.

[Kit]

Few more screens over at Gamespot:

http://uk.gamespot.com/company-of-heroes-2/images/1705920/

[briareos_kerensky]

Teaser online @Gametrailers. No game footage however.

[Kit]

Company of Heroes 2 chills out with ColdTech

As no recreation of World War 2's Eastern Front is complete without bitter, crippling cold, Relic has whipped up some fancy new technical whizzbangs it's calling 'ColdTech' for Company of Heroes 2. Snow gathers to slow troops, dynamic blizzards sweep in, and soldiers risk freezing to death.

Your army men will slowly freeze in the bitter Soviet winter unless they're hunkering down in buildings or around fires, so try not to send them marching through deep snowdrifts for too long. Heaven help the poor dears if they're out in the open when a blizzard hits.

ColdTech brings awfully fancy snow to CoH 2, which gathers and deepens to slow troops more and displays a record of everything that's passed by--until it melts or fresh snow falls on top.

It also adds fancy ice, which canny players can destroy to dunk anything moving across it. Hit the announcement for more on all ColdTech adds to Relic's Essence Engine 3.0.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/74964/company-of-heroes-2-chills-out-with-coldtech

Sounds awesome. Reminds me of the sort of work 2K put into the water in Bioshock. It should definitely add an extra tactical element to the battles.

Colour me excited.

[briareos_kerensky]

First trailer

[H-Man]

I don't do rts much these days, but that looks excellent.

[Kit]

Looks superb! Really liking how you have to take the environment into consideration this time round when contemplating your tactics. The part with the tanks riding over the river of ice looked like it could be tense.

Going to have a go at the expansions at some point thanks to the HumbleBundle to get me back up to speed with the series - never got round to playing them when they originally came out but I sunk a huge amount of time into the first; managed to get gold medals on every mission - yes, even the one where you have to defend the hill.